Conspiracy theories abounded last night after a nerve-tingling climax to the Premiership season when police were called in to investigate a mystery food poisoning outbreak that struck 10 Tottenham Hotspur players and possibly denied the club a place in the Champions League.

An off-colour Spurs crashed to a 2-1 defeat at West Ham after it was ruled the match would have to go ahead, while their north London rivals Arsenal beat Wigan 4-2 in the final match at Highbury to clinch fourth place and qualification for Europe's elite competition.

As Arsenal fans celebrated, Spurs were left wondering what had caused the bug to sweep through their squad. Police were called in at 1pm yesterday after consultations between the chairman Daniel Levy, the club secretary John Alexander and club doctor Charlotte Cowie. Blood and urine samples have been taken from the sick players and the Tottenham board will meet today to consider further action.

The Spurs manager Martin Jol said he did not suspect foul play and that the club had a "rough idea" what had caused the poisoning, leading to suggestions that the 10 players had eaten the same dish at their east London hotel.

The players were Michael Dawson, Michael Carrick, Edgar Davids, Robbie Keane, Radek Cerny, Calum Davenport, Teemu Tainio, Aaron Lennon, Lee Barnard and Tom Huddlestone. All but Huddlestone played some part in the game, though Cerny remained on the bench.

"We feel gutted. It is a big disappointment," said Jol, adding that Spurs had hoped to get the game delayed for three or four hours, or postponed until today, but neither option had been possible. "We made the decision with the whole squad to do the warm-up and everybody said they wanted to play the game," said Jol, who praised his players for showing great character and resilience. He ruled out an appeal against the Premier League's decision that the game had to go ahead.

The Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger commiserated. "What happened to Tottenham I don't know. I feel sorry for that. We knew what happened at West Ham was out of our hands. It is cruel for Tottenham but sport is like that."

Tottenham's squad had booked into Marriott West India Quay Hotel, at Canary Wharf, on Saturday and settled down for a buffet dinner at 7.30pm. It is not known what the players chose in a private dining room at the hotel, which specialises in fresh seafood from Billingsgate market. A typical menu offers a dozen oysters for £14, followed by a combination of prime fillet steak skewers and grilled jumbo shrimps with jambalaya rice for £12.

Jol was woken by the doctor at 5am yesterday with news of several sick players and confessed to feeling unwell himself. "It was a very awkward situation and I had not experienced it before in my career," he said.

By 11am Premier League officials had been called to the hotel after Tottenham expressed concern about their ability to fulfil the 3pm fixture. "We asked the Premier League to postpone the match for one day because you know how it is with food poisoning - you can feel better after six to eight hours. The only thing they said was that it was our responsibility [to decide whether to play]."

"We had 10 players in bed. Then we asked the Premier League to postpone the kick-off for three hours until six o'clock and that wasn't possible."

Frantic negotiations took place between league officials, Tottenham's management and medical staff and the police. The latter said the kick-off could be delayed until 5pm, but no later, because of concerns about public order if fans had been drinking all day. A Premier League spokesman said: "Tottenham Hotspur took the decision that a two-hour delay would have no material medical benefit for those players affected and accordingly decided to fulfil the fixture at the original 3pm kick-off time."

Paul Downing, the hotel's general manager, said: "We don't know that it's food poisoning but we need to establish what has made some of the players unwell. We are taking part in an investigation with club management to try to find that out." Downing, who declined to reveal what the players had eaten, said Tottenham had used the hotel as a pre-match base in the past. It is understood that all 10 players affected checked out at lunchtime and that no other guests at the hotel fell ill.

It is unlikely that Tottenham would succeed if they did appeal against the decision to play the match. The only similar occurrence in the league's history came in the 1996-97 season, when Middlesbrough were docked three points and fined for failing to fulfil a fixture when they decided not to send a team to Blackburn after their squad was hit by a bug.